


Questions & Answers

by petercapaldiscoiffure



Series: Emeline Trevelyan [1]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Gen, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-06
Updated: 2014-12-06
Packaged: 2018-02-28 08:06:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2724938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petercapaldiscoiffure/pseuds/petercapaldiscoiffure
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Inquisitor may be the one asking all the questions, but somehow the Iron Bull finds himself just as curious about their so-called Herald.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Questions & Answers

**T** he first thing he notices about the Herald is that she never stops talking. Or, more accurately, never stops  _questioning_  - he's pretty sure he sees Krem cough back a laugh the fifth or sixth or tenth time she comes around, wide-eyed and ready with another question about the Qunari, or mercenaries, or blade materials, whatever she's certain he might have an expert opinion on.

(The weapon material conversation does make him pause - what does a mage need to know about the cut of serpentstone or the balance of obsidian? Until he sees her a week later with a new, and very lethal looking, lazurite blade on the end of her staff. She beams when he compliments her choice.)

\---

The second thing to catch his interest is her admirable, if somewhat dogged, adherence to a very particular schedule.

His aching head and the quiet crunch of snow under small feet just beyond his tent wakes him as the sun rises pale over the mountains, and he pokes his head out to see her trekking back from the direction of the stables, arms laden with what looks like weeds. 

(She waves as best she can and slows, and seeing his tell-tale wince when the sun hits his eyes, hands him a couple stalks of something he can't identify and tells him to chew. He does, reluctantly, wishing his head hurt less so he could point out that no one should be so cheerful this early in the morning. He manages not to gag, just barely, and as he's watching her hips sway as she walks off, he's surprised to note that his head is already feeling better.)

He doesn't think much of it - so she's an early riser, no one is perfect - until it unfolds through conversation and observation that she apparently wakes a half hour before sunrise every day. Her breakfast is never taken with the soldiers, not out of snobbery but because she's already eaten and sung a private chant with Mother Giselle around the same time they're just getting their clothes on. When they're not fighting and she's not needed elsewhere, she spends approximately two hours in the afternoons jotting down notes on subjects he can't even begin to guess at, though he suspects obscure and probably unsanctioned usages of plants are involved somehow.  

(Sera gives him this last little tidbit - " _Lady_  Herald is pretty as you please, and no fun at all, least not to tease when she's all covered in her inks and papers. Come back later, she says. Watch the clock, right? I told her the planning takes the fun out of it - and  _she_  says maybe I shouldn't be putting salt in the puddings anyway, plans or help or no. Psh.")

It dawns on him later - the early rising, the chant and chores and study - that she's probably holding on for dear life to the same schedule she kept in the Circle, pointless and impractical as it might be. The world's at war, there's a hole the size of a fucking city in the sky and she's got it's partner stuck in her hand, and she can't take a ten minute break to go play a prank with a friend.  That's...something.  He's not sure what, exactly, but it's something.

\---

The third thing he notices is that the Herald at Haven is polite, playful yet properly reserved, curious but never rude, and never prone to displays of her magic - rarely even carrying her staff. In combat, though, she blossoms into something else entirely. Color comes into her cheeks, and he sees the way her eyes turn from afraid to excited to almost  _hungry_  when a battle turns their way. She knows little real combat magic, he's pretty sure - at least, compared to the apostates he's worked with. He gets the sense her spells are more the product of theory than application, tweaked on the fly to produce results far deadlier than what would have been necessary or appropriate in a cloistered tower filled with scholars.  But her movements are fluid and fast and just a little wild, bright and quick as the lightning she throws, and if he were the type to be embarrassed he might be a little abashed at how much it turns him on to see her lose herself to the heat of the fight.      

(Back at camp, he'll laugh when Sera complains about her and Dorian's magic whizzing by her head - "Flashy lights and all, but you have your job and I have mine, and mine is sticking baddies,  _not_  getting toasted by your magic twigs. Shut up, Dorian, what're you laughing at?" She'll apologize, of course. She'll giggle and tease too, but she keeps the peace - she's the type. But he'll smile to himself when later he notices her quietly flicking a delicate arc of lightning back and forth between her fingers when she's reading an old, moldering journal she insisted on salvaging. He thinks she's probably gotten very good at tiny, private rebellions - and he might admit that he knows a little about that sort of thing himself.)

\---

So, no, he may not ask as many questions as the Herald. That doesn't mean he's not looking for answers, but few know better than a Hissrad that questions aren't always the best way to get them -  and their intrepid Herald has already given him quite a lot to think about all on her own. 

 

 


End file.
